WHAT OF MEXICO ? 

(Abstract of an address before the National Educational 
Association, Hotel Astor, New York, July 7, 1916.) 

By DAVID STARR-JORDAN 




First Eilects of an Educational Exiiibition Orsaii!?;<»<l l»y th«i 
Kevolutionary Government in the City o£ Qucr^taro, Mexico 



Published by 

THE MEXICAN-AMERICAN LEAGUE 

70 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY 



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What of Mexico? 

By David Starr Jordan. 

The present condition in Europe is beyond question dis- 
tressing. It could be made worse in but two ways — by the 
restoration of the old tyranny or by the suppressing of 
national existence through armed intervention on the part 
of the United States. Yet the outlook for the long future 
was never better than to-day. The wounds of the Revolu- 
tion must heal slowly and from within. In nations, as in 
men, rehabilitation cannot begin at the surface. I believe 
that Mexico holds within herself capacity for regeneration. 
Everywhere outside the troubled zones, schools are building, 
great estates are being subdivided, justice is being estab- 
lished, the beginnings of self-government are arising. Inter- 
vention means war; war means conquest; conquest means 
the destruction of the growing elements in Mexican society. 
The United States can help Mexico but not by force of arms. 
We have no doubt made errors, these have been in response 
to the popular will to "do something" but nothing irre- 
vocable. To my mind we have avoided two capital mistakes 
—the recognition of Huerta and International war. 

In this connection it must be remembered that in 1848 
we signed with Mexico a treaty of arbitration whereby both 
nations agreedl to submit to an arbitral tribunal any differ- 
ences which might arise. Under this treaty the chief ques- 
tion between the United States and Mexico, that arising 
from the seizure of the "Pious Fund" of the California 
Missions by President Santa Ana, was amicably adjusted at 
the Hague. The verdict was averse to Mexico and the sum 
in question was promptly paid. We are not ready to make 
"scrap paper" of this agreement respected on both sides for 
nearly seventy years. 



Mexico was long a Spanish colony, organized and ruled 
under mediaeval conditions. Its properties were owned by 
a few royal favorites — its people bound to the land they did 
not own and held as serfs in ignorance, disease and super- 
stition. After a partial revolution which threw off the 
Spanish yoke but not the Spanish social system; after 
numerous disorders, with deeds of blood and of heroism, 
arose Porfirio Diaz, a man of resource and resolution who 
held the nation in leash through a combination of terror, 
affection and chicane. His method was "not democracy 
but business". He accomplished many things for the good 
of his people, but he failed to give them what they most 
neeed, education, with the freedom which education brings. 
Mediaevalism ruled as before, the land being still held in 
great estates, most of which were originally secured through 
favoritism or bought for a slight fraction of their value. 
On these properties the great landowner, as sole judge or 
"Alcalde", retained the power of life and death over the 
peasants or "peons". These, bound to the land and receiv- 
ing only a few "centcwos" a day, were always in arrears 
to the "patron" or labor boss and to the "hacienda" store. 
From generation to generation their only heritage was an 
ever-increasing load of debt. "No other ranchers would 
employ a man in debt to his neighbor and furthermore it 
would be considered a very improper thing to induce a man 
to leave a neighbor by offering him higher wages. The peon 
only knew that he had to stay on the ranch or starve". 
(Joseph P. Chamberlain: The Survey, August 12, 1916.) 

Moreover vast estates claimed b}^ the monastic orders and 
sequestrated for public use by Presidents Comofort and 
Juarez has been returned by Diaz to the brotherhoods who 
became again a power in politics. The "Home Rule" of the 
local communes or "municipios" was lost, and political 
bosses {"jefes politicos") appointed by the central govern- 
ment, dominated the towns and cities. Concessions of 
enormous value were peddled out for a trifle or given away 
to favorites, native or foreign. No doubt hundreds of 
foreign enterprises in Mexico rest on an honorable basis, 
yet too many of them do not, and some of the largest have 
a history which will not bear the light of day. Concession- 
aires, American, British, German, Spanish, became extrava- 



gantly rich, but no part of the immense wealth of Mexico 
in oil, mines, railways, forests, farms, water-power or bank- 
ing was allowed to flow back to the common people. 

As to Mexico's petroleum resources, the Mexican mem- 
bers of the recent El Paso Conference made the following 
statement: 

"PETROLEUM. — This great resource has been ex- 
ploited exclusively by English and American Companies, 
especially by the Pierson Company of London, and by the 
Waters-Pierce Oil Company of New York. 

The concessions granted by the administration of Diaz 
to the Pierson Company paralyzed compeltely the free 
exploitation of oil lands, even of those which might have 
been exploited by their native possessors. The most im- 
portant of these concessions consisted in, according to the 
Pierson Company, the right that no other company should be 
allowed to exploit the land within three kilometers of the 
place where they had sunk the well. The Pierson Company 
obtained in addition the exclusive right to use the federal 
zones of all the east of the republic with the promise to deliv- 
er to the government ten per cent, of the product that they 
obtained. The Pierson Company took advantage of this to 
survey and ascertain the oil-bearing zones, and secretly to 
buy the land for a bagatelle from the Indians, thus evading 
the agreement which it had with the government. At 
present no petroleum lands belong to Mexico. Foreign 
capitalists have acquired all the oil-bearing lands by de- 
ceiving the Indians or by taking advantage of the im- 
morality of local authorities. This national wealth flows 
silently to other countries without leaving any advantage 
to the Mexican people. It does not matter that it pays 
insignificant custom duties. The people are not able to 
obtain cheap petroleum to provide power for their indus- 
tries. Irrigation still awaits the coming of a cheap com- 
bustible. It is absurd that this should occur in the country 
which is par excellence the producer of the appropriate 
fuel". 

As to mines, the same authorities, Seiiores RoUand, 
Rojas and Atl, continue : 

"MINES. — The great foreign countries control immense 
mining regions, and exploit them under an absolutely ex- 



elusive regime, paralyzing all other works that do not suit 
them, but which might be of public utility. Wages have 
always been so miserable that the laborers have only been 
able to vegetate. 

"Due to the capitalistic criterion that reigned during 
the dictatorship of Diaz, the old law that permitted the 
small miner to exploit easily his reduced holdings, was 
replaced by the present law that favors only the great 
enterprises". 

As to Finance, I may further quote : "The bankers have 
carried on operations proper to usurers. They have specu- 
lated in lands, timber and every kind of privilege. The 
health of Porfirio Diaz had a profound influence in the 
markets, Mexican finances, functioned on a basis of spolia- 
tion and threatened to collapse with the fall of the 
dictator." 

It cannot be denied that in some regions American in- 
fluences, contemptuous of the feudal regime, have bettered 
the condition of the common people. Higher wages, real 
money, rational sanitation, more specialized forms of labor, 
were all to the peon's advantage. But the process of 
speeding-up which these advantages demanded were not 
often to his taste. As Flandreau observes — "No people 
whose diet consists chiefly of tortilla, chili, black coffee and 
cigarettes, are ever going to be lashed by the desire to ac- 
complish." 

Diaz, himself, so far as I may judge, was personally 
honest. One may admit that, as Chamberlain puts it, he 
"understood his people and his country well. With all his 
native Mexican cruelty and with all his faults, he was a 
loyal and patriotic Mexican. Mexico was his monument." 

But as with age Diaz grew too feeble to retain personal 
control, the system passed out of his hands and subordi- 
nates ran into wild extravagances of oppression. Diaz had 
leaned for support largely on foreign concessionaires, while 
the eager group of "cientificos", "clericos" and "jefes 
politicos", over-reaching in many directions, made condi- 
tions unbearable to those outside these favored circles, that 
is, to the great body of the Mexican people. The country 
was ripe, therefore, for some kind of an insurrection to re- 



move evils inherited from old Spain and to abate new ones 
of unbridled spoliation. 

Revolution is never law-abiding. In its appeal to higher 
law it lifts the lid from society. Whenever traditional or 
conventional restraints are dissolved, injustice, robbery and 
murder have sway for the time being. The Mexican Revo- 
lution has offered no exception. But once under way, it 
must go forward to the end. No backward movement by 
whomsoever led or supported could endure. For this reason 
the rule of General Huerta, avowedly re-actionary and sup- 
ported by foreign interests, was not and could not properly 
te recognized by the United States. It gave no promise of 
permanence or of peace. The era of Diaz is gone for- 
ever. Mexico could no more return to it than France to the 
regime of Napoleon III. The Mexican people will find peace 
only by deserving it and to this end, military force, their own 
or any other, can contribute very little. Bandit violence, 
however mischievous, is only a feature of transition. It is 
eot the Revolution itself, but a temporary, although hideous, 
excrescence. 

It is a common custom of the American public to re- 
gard Mexican disorder as all of one piece — the Revolution, 
the anarchy which the Revolution has failed to prevent 
and the ignorance and poverty for which it set out to find 
a remedy. The Mexicans must work out their own problems 
under their own leaders. Thus far the one who has shown 
most civil capacity, the only one the United States govern- 
ment could recognize since the death of Madero, as de facto 
administrator, has been Venustiano Carranza, lately gov- 
ernor of Coahuila. Though he may not be the wisest of 
Mexican statesmen, nor being a Spaniard, the fittest to bring 
order to a mixed population, yet thus far he alone has led 
the way out of chaos to law and order. Our Mexican col- 
leagues speak thus of the First Chief : 

"In this great constructive movement, Carranza repre- 
sents the largest effort toward the realization of popular 
ideals and toward the practical solution of the problem of 
Mexico. * * * Carranza has succeeded, during the revolu- 
tionary period, in unifying the popular confidence in his 
personality, and has slowly become the effective center of 
national efforts. 



"The American people naturally desire that the Mexican 
social reconstruction shall complete itself rapidly. But it 
should not escape their comprehension that the solution of 
the complicated problems of Mexico cannot be attained 
through simple desire, nor from the outside. The phenomena 
numifested in Mexico are in obedience to social laws whose 
action cannot be hurried." 

The revolution is nearing its end and one may now 
look toward the future. This does not lie in the hands of 
bandits or assassins, nor does it depend alone on the 
wisdom of Carranza. It rests with the Mexican people. It 
is for them to take possession of their country. What are 
they doing? 

In all of Mexico, except the war-torn belt and the 
mining states, new democratic institutions are springing up 
like fresh grass after a prairie fire. Yucatan has taken the 
lead; I have her new statutes before me. Underi her wise 
governor, Salvador Alvarado, 2,400 free schools now exist 
where were only 200 in 1914. The great "haciendas" have 
been bought up on equitable terms with state bonds, to be 
subdivided and sold in small farms on easy conditions, but 
with the proviso that if not worked they revert to the state. 
By such means the peons are trained in industry and thrift. 
Other states have followed along similar lines, fourteen out 
of the twenty-seven, notably Michoacan, Jalisco, Vera Cruz, 
Guanajuato, Queretaro, Sonora, Colima, Aguas Calientes, 
besides considerable portions of remaining districts. For 
example, in Zacatecas where the mining territory is still in 
confusion, the agricultural areas in the southeastern and 
southwestern corners are said to be making hopeful 
progress. Again, in several states the bull-fight and the cock- 
fight have been abolished to give way to baseball and 
"pelota" (hip-ball). In some the sale of liquor has been pro- 
hibited. In all the "jefe politico" has been abolished and 
local goverment, after the fashion of the New England town- 
meeting, gives new life to the "manicipios". Of this con- 
structive movement we find almost nothing in the American 
press. The Mexican delegates to the Conference complain 
rather bitterly that "periodicals say nothing when a thou- 
sand schools are inaugurated, but if a bandit assaults a train, 
the press declares that the countrj^ is in anarchy." 

8 



The disorder in Mexico leads to constant discussion of 
intervention in the American press either as a "painful 
duty" or as a road to "easy money". On the other hand 
the fear or the hope of intervention and of national disso- 
lution at the hands of the "Colossus of the North" is a most 
potent cause of continued disorder. This is a vicious circle, 
only to be broken by a direct and helpful understanding 
with whatever group of men we recognize as constituting 
the actual government of Mexico. 

But in considering these progressive measures we need 
not be surprised if sometimes they encounter check or even 
disaster. It is not possible to always keep up the first en- 
thusiasms and the great opponents to betterment in Mexico 
are by no means subdued. The practical absence of a sane 
middle class, the selfishness of the higher caste and the 
ignorance of the lower, with the recklessness of foreign 
investors, will, no doubt, continue to hamper upward move- 
ments. 

What parts of Mexico then are in disorder? Mainly 
the border and the mining states, most of all Chihuahua. 
There Orozco maintained his revolt, and after him. Villa, 
certain men on our side of the Rio Grande having been in 
close financial relations with each as well as with Madero 
and Huerta. Later Villa's purpose has apparently been to 
force intervention by demonstrating Carranza's incapacity 
to maintain order. Villa was also doubtless impelled by a 
desire for revenge for real or supposed atrocities committed 
against Mexicans. The raid on Columbus followed closely 
the "holocaust" at El Paso, where some twenty Mexicans 
were burned alive in a jail by somebody's carelessness with 
a match after they had taken a forced bath in gasolene. 
The affair was officially called an "unavoidable accident" 
but it led to Villa's threat to make "a torch" of every 
American he could catch. 

Eagerness for war as a result of intrigue and mutual 
suspicion has kept Chihuahua in turmoil. Americans have 
often reproached Carranza with his failure adequately to 
police the border. As to this it must be noted that the 
border is 1,756 miles long from Tia Juana to Brazos San- 
tiago, a distance as great on the Mexican side as on ours. 
Greater, really, for on the south there are neither roads nor 



railroads, and Mexican soldiers can be transferred from 
place to i)lace along the boundary only by using the trains 
of the Southern Pacific in Texas and New Mexico. 

In the mining states of Durango, Zacatecas, Coahuila, 
Nuevo Leon and Sinaloa, there is disorder and starvation, 
because railways are broken, mines and smelters are closed 
and thousands and thousands of men are out of work. In the 
great oil regions of Tamaulipas, doubtless the richest field 
in tlie world, there has never been real order. In Morelos, 
Zapata, I am told, has virtually expelled or killed every 
property holder, though it is now asserted that his power 
has been broken. In Oaxaca, a small reactionary revolution- 
ary has been started by the ill-starred Feliz Diaz. 

Among the wealthy upper caste of Mexico, Spanish and 
foreign, there are very man}^ cultivated people, men and 
women of a high type. Many of these have been banished 
by the Revolution and are now domiciled in the United 
States. Their supporters denounce it as unjust that a million 
intelligent, cultivated and wealthy people should be domi- 
anted by fifteen millions of ignorant peasants. The plea 
is old in human history. Men of culture cannot rule as a 
separate caste. They must get down to help lift up the 
mass. Because they have never done their part toward 
the training of the peon, he has become a terrible menace. 
Caste divisions are themselves a menace to human welfare 
and the ultimate future of every nation is bound up with 
democracy. "Too long have histories looked on the rich 
and noble as marking the fate of the world." 

But citizens of the United States, among them men of 
high character and purpose, have been murdered in 
Mexico. Properties large and small have slipped from 
American hands during the Revolution. Yes, because it was 
revolution, not often because the victims were Americans. 
A difficult period lies ahead when some tribunal, perhaps 
International, shall decide on the equity of foreign holdings 
in Mexico. The greatest enemy of honest investment is the 
dishonest exploiter. In the words of a well-known mine- 
owner (in a private letter, July 7, 1916) : "No province of 
the old Roman Empire was ever looted by corrupt proconsuls 
more shamelessly than Mexico has been by the grabbers of 

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all nations, amongst whom those of the United States stand 
facile priticeps." 

Moreover, it is well to remember that neither in Inter- 
national Law nor in morals is there any warrant for the 
use of armies of invasion for the purpose of safeguarding 
individuals in foreign countries, or of protecting their ven- 
tures abroad. All that we can claim for them, if we re- 
spect the sovereignty of the nation in question, is the pro- 
tection that nation affords to its own citizens. Such pro- 
tection is as precarious in a period of Revolution as it now 
is in the war zones of Europe, Some holdings are doubtless 
valid. Very few of them have ever paid their proper share 
of taxes. The present impecuniosity of the Carranza gov- 
ernment has its cause in inability to collect just taxes and 
unwillingness to pay exorbitant interest to the pawn-broker 
banks these same interests have set up. 

My mining friend continues : 

"I am not sure that the rich mines in which I am myself 
interested are not part of an ancient steal under the flimsy 
disguise of a Diaz concession. Whether they are or not I 
will see them all in northeast Hades before I ever give voice 
or vote for this Government to make war on the unfortunate 
victims of greed in its most shameless form, and of the most 
arrant tyranny that has disgraced the American continent 
since the days of Cortez." 

In a similar vein Colonel Daniel M. Burns, for thirty 
years a mine-owner in Mexico, writes to the San Francisco 
Bulletin (August 5, 1916) : 

"Various groups of foreign interests which have ex- 
ploited Mexico and fattened in the process now desire Inter- 
vention. But their point of view is not mine, I do not wish 
to see Mexico blotted out in blood by this nation because it 
is the stronger — or to have tens of thousands of my fellow 
countrymen slaughtered because I chance to have some 
dollars invested there," 

The doctrine assumed by Lord Palmerston that any in- 
vestor or adventurer may call on the armed forces of his 
nation to extricate him from trouble in foreign lands has 
been, in Asia and in Africa, behind many of the indefensible 
acts of the Great Powers of Europe. The legal remedy for 
unfair treatment should be sought in channels of diplomacy 

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
II I I I I I ! 



015 833 521 
and arbitration. Our riglits find tliiir limit iii (Uiiiandiiif,' 
that our citizens be treated as justly as those of tlie nation 
in question. The assumption of the right or duty of in- 
vasion foHowed by annexation is the basis of Imperialism. 
The present war and most others in recent years is largely 
the result of the clash of rival imperialistic schemes. From 
tile point of view of democracy the whole process is danger- 
ous as well as dishonorable. 

In any event we must conclude that the conflict almost 
forced on the United States in June by ardent exploiters 
and their journalistic allies would have led us into most un- 
worthy lines of action. The apparent crisis was due ap- 
parently to serious misunderstandings on both sides, now 
happily for the time at least, allayed. Our country has at 
present no just reason for intervention and conquest, and I 
personally see no prospect of it in the future. "There are 
no people", as Lincoln once observed, "good enough to rule 
over other people against their will." What Mexico wants 
of us is not more war, Roman fashion, "making a desert to 
call it peace", but our understanding, our confidence and 
our help. Education first and flowing from it justice, 
sanitation, industry and thrift. 




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